MUSKEGON, MI – In a T-shirt and cargo shorts, Steve Warmington was changing the message on the sign in front of his Lakeside bar, the beloved Marine Tap Room.

Chronicle file photoOutgoing Muskegon Mayor Steve Warmington describes himself as a Harley Davidson rather than a symphony "type of a guy." Warmington was an initial key developer of Muskegon Bike Time.

Muskegon’s decade-long mayor had just announced his decision to resign the mayor’s office in mid term. As he fixed the letters to the Tap Room sign over the course of 15 minutes, three parties walking along Lakeshore Drive stopped to give him their best.

Another nearly dozen vehicles drove by, horns honking and hands waving. Warmington admitted later he probably didn’t know half of the well-wishers passing by on that late spring afternoon.

Since taking office in 2002 to lead what had been an uncontrollable Muskegon City Commission, Warmington has grown into a larger than life personality in the community. He has become what Hollywood casting agents might want in the role of a poised and confident small-town mayor.

Many of his supporters also would say he had grown from a neighborhood bar owner to one of the most influential people in Muskegon County and the community’s leading elected official. His detractors would say Warmington too often served his own interests and those of his buddies.

Muskegon Mayor Steve Warmington

The mayor bristles at such attacks. Given the opportunity he will challenge his critics, using language that reflects the blue-collar, working class nature of the Marine Tap Room.

Muskegon had a mayor – born in Iron Mountain in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, raised in East Grand Rapids but a Muskegon resident since 1977 – that reflected the common man in the community.

“I’m not a museum and symphony type of guy,” Warmington freely admits. “I’m a beer-drinking, Harley-Davidson, 19th hole after golf type of guy.”

“I’ve met such wonderful people as mayor and that has been one of the neatest things about the office,” Warmington said of such people as the late Community Foundation for Muskegon County President Pat Johnson and her husband Chuck, the retired SPX Corp. executive.

As Warmington leaves a decade of service to the city of Muskegon and the broader community at the end of the month, there is time to reflect on his years in office and the accomplishments and failures of the city commissions he led.

Warmington ran his first campaign for public office coming off the presidency of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, a Lansing-based trade group. Friend John VanWyck, the retired telephone company public affairs officer, suggested he run for office.

Others such as current Muskegon County Commissioner Bob Scolnik showed up at the Marine Tap Room to encourage Warmington to run for mayor. His longtime friends George Bailey and the late John Bultema – Muskegon marine contractors who built the Great Lakes Marina across from his bar – wanted Warmington to run for mayor to stabilize the political environment in the city and create a more business-friendly attitude at City Hall.

The city leadership had been in shambles with commission infighting and petty bickering creating weekly headlines.

Warmington was in a five-way race for the open mayor’s office in 2001, going on to defeat Jane Clingman Scott in the general election. In 2005, he defeated Ric Scott in the general election but ran unopposed in 2009.

“One of the key reasons I first ran for mayor was that I was embarrassed by the elected officials at City Hall,” Warmington recalled in a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle from a high-top table at the Marine Tap Room.

Within a year of taking office with Commissioners Steve Gawron, Bill Larson and Karen Buie, former Chronicle City Hall reporter Bob Burns described the Warmington-led group as the “commission of love.” The brickbats had been turned into hugs.

“It was a compliment,” Warmington said of the “commission of love” tag. “The elected officials turned it around. That was a commission that loved the community and wanted to work for it.”

Few can really understand what Warmington has accomplished at Muskegon City Hall like Norton Shores Mayor Gary Nelund. Over the past few years, Nelund and Warmington have alternated from colleagues to adversaries on the contentious issues of local government consolidation.

“I think his legacy will be that he started with a city commission that was a joke and he built a good working coalition on that commission,” Nelund said of Warmington. “He loves his community and has such a passion for the city. He leaves the city in better position than when he took office.”

Chronicle file photoOne of Warmington's legacy as mayor as been a stable political environment at Muskegon City Hall.

The foundation for his term in office – and the beginning of the change in attitude at City Hall – came with the city’s role in developing a Michigan SmartZone for alternative energy that became home to the Grand Valley State University Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, Warmington said. It was a waterfront development project that brought community recognition across the state and around the West Michigan region.

The city and community leaders received a West Michigan economic development award at a Grand Rapids reception for the energy business park development now known as Harbor 31.

“When they call on us as the winner of the award, we all jumped up like we were being called on the Price Is Right,” Warmington recalled. “No longer were we in Muskegon the ugly step child.”

The Warmington years at Muskegon City Hall also involved the demolition of the former Muskegon Mall and rebuilding the historic streets of the central business district. Over the years, Warmington has supported calls for an Indian casino in downtown Muskegon to jump start the redevelopment. He said the casino support was all about wanting to create jobs.

His wooing of the owners of Hot Rod Harley-Davidson to build their new motorcycle sales and service center in downtown Muskegon rather than along U.S. 31 near The Lakes Mall brought more than just that critical investment to the city. The Harley dealership became a catalyst to develop what has become Muskegon Bike Time, an event that Warmington co-chaired in its early years.

Other developments under Warmington’s watch have been the redevelopment of cross-lake ferry service between Muskegon and Milwaukee with the Lake Express and the continued growth of industry in Muskegon’s Port City Industrial Park with companies such as ADAC Plastics, the Port City Group and GE Aviation, formerly Johnson Technology.

Chronicle file photoMuskegon Mayor Steve Warmington at the city's Seaway Industrial Park as the Muskegon 25 program of free land for job creation was announced.

But Warmington also presided over the reorganization and reduction of city government, especially with the recession that struck all communities in 2008. Declining revenues and rising costs dramatically reduced City Hall staff and eliminated programs, but basic services were maintained without significant tax increases.

Finally, a speech before the Muskegon Rotary Club as he began his third term in office in early 2010, Warmington gave a bold challenge to all communities to join efforts at local government consolidation and cooperation. He began with fire service and the local communities have gone on to discuss water.

The consolidation issue has been controversial and for the most part unsuccessful to this point.

“On paper, it all makes sense but with the personalities involved it has been a firestorm,” Warmington concedes.

Progress on government consolidation and other key issues now will be left to other leaders in the city of Muskegon and their counterparts throughout Muskegon County. Warmington will be putting more time into upgrading the Marine Tap Room with outdoor seating and a new picture window on the side of the building.

As the last of the motorists honked going by the Marine Tap Room, Warmington had completed his sign change. The bar’s sign proclaimed: “Love Muskegon Week.”

“This community has given myself and my family such a great quality of life,” Warmington said of what motivated his time in office. “And I am thankful.”

Coming next: Warmington reflects on what might have been the community’s biggest success during his time in office, reinstatement of cross-lake ferry service. But with the ferry dock locating in the Lakeside Business District, it remains an issue that brings the mayor the most criticism.